


to desire a tomorrow

by aceds



Category: Persona 5
Genre: "wow the two of us are kinda fucked up" the fic, (kind of), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, theyre kind of like. psychic. abt being sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23537629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceds/pseuds/aceds
Summary: No one’s really supposed to care how Akira feels; he’s supposed to be a mirror for all of his friends’ problems, a shoulder to cry on.Akira's parents do not want him home for Christmas.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 20
Kudos: 530
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	to desire a tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> i bullied myself into writing this. fastest time ive ever written a fic... four hours. i was GONNA beta this i swear... tbh ive always planned on making an akeshu fic, they're a really important ship to me and i've gone mad analyzing them so many times, but i didnt expect this to be my first one. its kind of a mess but hope you still enjoy!
> 
> title comes from [evening dye](https://youtu.be/_LMXmzdyaEw) by balloon, give it and balloon a listen they're honestly my favorite musician. translation by [coleena wu](https://www.youtube.com/user/917802) :)

Akira has a process: You turn a corner in the crowded backstreets. You find that place just a little away from the bathhouse. The walls crowd around you, and there’s some old couple speaking in hushed tones nearby. You sit on the bench. Breathe in, then scream into your arm. Groan out all of that brutal, definitely-not-well-meaning things burrowing into your chest. All of that teenage angst that Sojiro tells you that you have. You don’t talk about it, you obviously don’t _tell anyone_ about it. Your Personas can’t help you, all the power in the world couldn’t. Telling your friends would make them start getting worried, and then you’ll lose your place here, too. 

  
  


_I don’t think it would be suitable for you to go home._ He can hear the tone of his mother’s voice ringing in his ear. _It’ll ruin the family image._ She had barely sounded guilty at all. All that time cultivating a place for him in that hellhole. Superficial laughs and glassy grins. Everyone praises the countryside for being so peaceful, but it was too stuffy for Akira, then and now. He extended his stay in Tokyo for another year. His parents had paid for his tuition at Shujin, and at the time he hadn’t minded it or even thought to think deeper about it. _Maybe your parents want to see you!_ Ann had told him excitedly over a cup of tea last week. _I would love for you to be happy with your parents,_ Goro had whispered to him through a phone call just last night. 

  
  


So, Akira had tried. _Fuck,_ he had tried. He called three times just today. The silence between him and his mother felt so taut and frigid that he had nearly hung up, multiple times.All that, and she couldn’t bother to fake being apologetic about not letting Akira come home. So, he’ll stay. They don’t want him, so he’ll stay. He drags an arm across his eyes, takes another deep breath, his shoulders rising -- then lets it go. He looks up at the sky, at the beginning of rain clouds forming in the horizon. 

  
  


The stench in this place always bothers him. Yongen-jaya will never really _annoy_ him; its home now, more than ever, after that phone call, but after that episode of him storming out of the cafe with Sojiro looking back at him, ever so concerned? He doesn’t feel like he can even enter that cafe now. What’s he going to tell Goro? _Yeah, sorry, my parents fucked me up too._

  
  


He doesn’t even need to, because less than a second later, Goro Akechi steps into his vicinity, looking like a supermodel even now that he seems to have run all the way here. He stops when he meets Akira’s eyes. Akira inhales, looks up. “I’m not crying, calm down.” 

  
  


“Sojiro made it sound like you were,” He’s so clearly out of breath that Akira lets a little laugh escape from his own parched throat. He hates that concern in his voice. No one’s _really_ supposed to care how Akira feels; he’s supposed to be a mirror for all of his friends’ problems, a shoulder to cry on. Sighing, he remembers Goro’s words, his insistence that Akira shouldn’t just confine himself to being a wet towel. _You’re a person._ A hand finding his. _Please let yourself be loved._

  
  


“Well, I’m not,” he repeats. “It’s okay.” He knows he’s being difficult right now, especially with the rain clouds starting up. 

  
  


Goro tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, pulling at his sleeves like Akira suggested to him a few months ago. The wonder of it all astounds him: that Goro Akechi is here, that they hold hands sometimes. That Goro really ran to Yongen-jaya in the slow beginning of heavy rain, just to sit here and deal with his miserable ass. Akira bites his lip. 

  
  


“What happened, Akira?” Goro’s voice is closer to his ear now. He’s sat down beside him on the bench and tilted his head forward to see Akira’s eyes. He looks so concerned that Akira wants to paste a new face over his; a happy one, a face that’ll make everything, for both of them, happy and peaceful. 

  
  


He takes a deep breath. Its so hard to get the words out of his throat, to admit that he has weaknesses too. His process was so simple. You’re not supposed to tell these things to people, but Goro is already here and Akira thinks he’d trust Goro more than the world. Goro, and Ann, and Ryuji, Futaba, Makoto, Haru, Yusuke, Morgana— 

  
  


“Akira—” 

  
  


“I asked my mom.” He intended to say it all out in one breath, but he doesn’t want Goro to be able to tell how choked up his voice is. “If she wanted me. At home. For Christmas.” 

  
  


Faintly, he hears Goro’s “ah”, and it tears into his chest and breaks open his heart. At least _Akira_ has a mother. He’s complaining about someone that Goro never got to properly have. _I know she must have loved me,_ he told him once. _Just… not enough, I guess._ Well, I love you, Akira had said, trying to make it sound casual without all of his emotions to come pouring out. 

  
  


“She didn’t… She didn’t want me.” His voice sounds choked up anyway, and at the sound of the crack Goro pulls Akira forward for a hug and entwines their fingers. 

  
  


Akira has a process, when it comes to Goro and his own inability to understand self-worth. He takes Goro’s fingers, one by one, holds them in his own. When Goro starts crying, or when he can see the tears forming in the corners of his eyes, Akira pulls him in for a hug just like this, breathing in and out to give him some steadiness. It solidifies in Akira and Goro’s minds that the other is there. His greatest fear is that all of his adoration for this broken boy has never shown. 

  
  


This hug feels like this: The love is there, so aching and real that Akira buries his face against Goro’s neck to listen to his heartbeat some more. All of the _I understand, its okay, I know you’ll be okay_ are left unsaid, but Akira feels them anyway. Akira doesn’t cry: he’s made a point of it. Some part of him, ever since he was a boy, has never let him sob it out. But he feels all of this anyway, cherishes it and holds it in his hand delicately. There is a boy, and he was torn apart and glued back, torn apart and glued back. Somehow he is still standing, and somehow Akira knows him more than anyone in the world, and someday, he’ll show it. Someday, he’ll be able to have enough warmth for the two of them. 

  
  


“You are okay,” he has told Goro, and Goro whispers it in his ear now, the words blurring up Akira’s glasses and leaving him speechless. Someday, the two of them really will be okay. 


End file.
